Podcast: Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall on ‘Noroi: The Curse’

This weekend, Austin-based filmmakers Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall will host the world premiere of their debut film, Man Finds Tape, at the Tribeca Film Festival. As self-described J-Horror fans, it should come as no surprise that Man Finds Tape shares some of the signature unease of Japanese ghost movies. And there's no better example of the genre than Noroi: The Curse, which the duo picked for their episode of Certified Forgotten – even though one of them only watched the movie for the first time this week.

Filmmaker Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki) tells stories too strange to be believed. As a paranormal investigator, he’s often on the frontlines of unexplained phenomena, even if his work is more reality television fodder than award-winning journalism. But when Kobayashi’s latest case starts to develop real legs – leading him to unearth the secrets of an abandoned village and a demon named Kagutaba – he may not be ready for the truths that he finds. For American audiences, Kōji Shiraishi's Noroi: The Curse has long been a hard-to-find gem – but its audience has grown in recent years with a prime placement on Shudder.

In this short excerpt from the episode, Hall recalls sitting down to watch Noroi: The Curse for the first time one week before the world premiere of Man Finds Tape and finding unexpected parallels between the films:

When I was watching it – again, for the first time 48 hours ago – the first 20 or 30 minutes or so, I was like, God, man, this movie is fucking cool as hell. And then they started talking about ectoplasmic worms and a couple other ideas. I was like, oh, it's a little too similar to Man Finds Tape!

The Noroi: The Curse episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast with Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, or the podcast platform of your choice.